He had known well enough a moment ago—to some point, in fact, whence she could indicate to him the direction of the Little Hump, where the treasure lay; afterwards, to the very hill-top where some hours earlier they had forgathered. But he would not or could not explain this. Some monstrous blight of gloom had seized his brain at a swoop. He thought it must be one of the crows, and he stumbled along, raving in his heart. If she offered to help him now, he would tear his arm furiously from her touch. She wondered, poor stricken thing, haunting him with tragic eyes. Then at last her misery and desolation found voice—
“What have I done? I will not ask again to go with thee, if that is it. It was only one little foolish cry of terror, most dear—that they should suspect, and seize, and torture me. But, indeed, should they do it, thou canst trust me to be silent.”
He stopped, swaying, and regarded her demoniacally. His face was a livid and malignant blot in the thickening dusk. To torture her? What torture could equal his at this moment? She sought merely to move him by an affectation of self-renunciation. That, of course, called at once for extreme punishment. He must bite and strangle her to death.
He moved noiselessly upon her. She stood spellbound before him. All at once something seemed to strike him on the head, and, without uttering a sound, he fell forward into the bush.
* * * * *
Ducos opened his eyes to the vision of so preternaturally melancholy a face, that he was shaken with weak laughter over the whimsicality of his own imagination. But, in a very little, unwont to dreaming as he was, the realization that he was looking upon no apparition, but a grotesque of fact, silenced and absorbed him.
Presently he was moved to examine his circumstances. He was lying on a heap of grass mats in a tiny house built of boards. Above him was a square of leaf-embroidered sky cut out of a cane roof; to his left, his eyes, focussing with a queer stiffness, looked through an open doorway down precipices of swimming cloud. That was because he lay in an eyrie on the hillside. And then at once, into his white field of vision, floated the dismal long face, surmounted by an ancient cocked-hat, slouched and buttonless, and issuing like an august Aunt Sally’s from the neck of a cloak as black and dropping as a pall.
The figure crossed the opening outside, and wheeled, with the wind in its wings. In the act, its eyes, staring and protuberant, fixed themselves on those of the Frenchman. Immediately, with a little stately gesture expressive of relief and welcome, it entered the hut.
“By the mercy of God!” exclaimed the stranger in his own tongue. Then he added in English: “The Inglese recovers to himself?”
Ducos smiled, nodding his head; then answered confidently, feeling his way: “A little, sir, I tank you. Thees along night. Ah! it appear all one pain.”